Tutty left Smiling after Spring Mile success

‘You can’t have a better start to the turf season than this,” says trainer.

The mercurial Look Back Smiling provided Gemma Tutty with the biggest success of her training career when winning the William Hill Epic Boost Spring Mile at Doncaster.

Bought out of Ed Dunlop’s stable by Nick Bradley for what now looks a snip at GBP 10,000, the four-year-old was defying a career-high mark of 83.

A winner in heavy ground at Town Moor last October, he had conditions to suit once more and was delivered perfectly by 5lb claimer Brandon Wilkie.

The only worry was that under pressure he drifted into Jamie Spencer on the 5-1 favourite Thunder Roar, bidding to give Tony Coyle and Kaine Wood a first winner since the start of their new joint venture. The stewards left the original result alone, though.

Tutty said of the 17-2 winner: “As you could see in the final furlong, he’s not the most straightforward and he doesn’t make life easy for his jockeys.

“That’s another fantastic run at this track though, so we’re going to have to look at coming back here.

“He doesn’t do a stroke at home. In his work, we put the least experienced jockeys on him and just play catch me if you can, then he just keeps going and going.”

She went on: “He won three races last year, but I suppose in racing like he does, it’s protected him from the handicapper. It’s just a shame he needs the ground this soft because some of those big handicaps in the summer would be perfect for him.

“We’ve had a really good start to the year, we’ve targeted the All-Weather Championships, so we’ve had more runners than we’d normally have and they’ve been running well, but you can’t have a better start to the turf season than this.

“It’s my biggest win, I suppose, we’ve got about 20 horses in and the staff have worked so hard all winter, the staff have been up and down that motorway all winter, so I can’t thank them enough.

“Nick Bradley has a few horses with me now, so it’s nice to repay the faith he has shown in me.”

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